People have a craving for sweet foods and drinks, however, natural sweeteners, such as sugar, have a high caloric content and therefore are conducive to weight gain. Moreover, people with certain medical conditions, such as various forms of diabetes, must severely limit their sugar intake.
In order to overcome these problems, researchers have been looking for compositions a very low or no caloric content, are sweet but otherwise have a neutral taste and can be readily used in food stuff. One of the earliest such sweeteners that is still in use is saccharin. Though it is widely used to sweeten many foods and beverages, saccharin has an aftertaste that is objectionable to some people.
Another popular artificial sweetener is aspartyl-phenylalanine methyl ester (“aspartame”). Aspartame has a sweet taste with only minimal bitterness for most people. Its onset of sweetness is only slightly slower than sucrose (the key ingredient of sugar).
Various artificial sweeteners are disclosed in, U.S. Pat. No. 5,098,730 to Pepper et al. (composition including xylitol and a reduced calorie bulking agent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,758,443 to Roy et al. (amides of aspartic acid and certain amides characterized by the presence of a thietanyl substituent); U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,989 to Barnett et al.(dipepetides of certain aminodicarboxylic acid esters); U.S. Pat. No. 4,254,154 to Eisenstadt (composition including dipeptide sweetener plus a sugar or sugar alcohol, a glycyrrhizin and cream of tartar); and U.S. Pat. No. 4,004,039 to Shoaf et al. (aspartame dispersed throughout a matrix). These patents, incorporated herein by reference, generally attempt to provide or synthesize sweeteners having the taste of the natural sweetness of ordinary sugar. However, none of these approaches were completely successful.